


Waking

by Katharos



Category: Soukyuu no Fafner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:12:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katharos/pseuds/Katharos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paired ficlets from Soushi and Kazuki's points of view. Spoilers for the second half of the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking

**Soushi**

This is the memory that slips into Soushi's mind, on quiet nights when he hovers somewhere between waking and sleeping. Its edges are blurry with distance, but he can remember the damp, earthy scent of the clay, the way it squished beneath their fingers; he can remember wrestling with Kazuki on the floor of Akane-san's workshop, squealing and laughing as they attempted to smear it all over each other.

He remembers sprawling over each other, panting and happy, grinning up at their mothers' amused resignation in perfect, happy complicity.

There is a wall between who he is now and that memory of the boy in a warm, happy heap with his friend; a wall of smooth, perfect glass that allows him only to look, that will never warm and give to his touch like the clay. He can't touch that boy again.

But the glass isn't just across his past. It's all around him. He can feel it as it moves; it digs into him unexpectedly, unyielding and hard and cold. It is what he has seen against what he sees now, what he knows against what he lives everyday as he attends school, lives among the dream that the others weave and make real between them.

This island is a dream, and it's all the proof Soushi needs to know that dreams can be real. But even real dreams are fragile; they can vanish with a touch. Best to keep reality behind the glass; best not to disturb the dreamers. Even if the glass is cold.

And Kazuki is part of the dream. A dream a hundred years old, of peace and clear skies. Soushi knows himself a child of the present, bred for war, and the glass is thick between them. So look but don't touch. Never, never touch.

But now Kazuki is inside Alvis; he wears a pilot suit and a uniform identical to his. His eyes are as filled up with secrets as Soushi's are, until they all spill out and they're not secrets anymore.

Kazuki is inside the glass now.

And it doesn't seem impossible anymore. That he might touch.

 

**Kazuki**

  
(Set after Kazuki comes back to the island)

 

One night when he has been kept late for tests, Toomi-sensei tells him he might as well stay the night, and sends him down to the living quarters with a card key.

Soushi's door is ajar and the light is still on, so he pauses to glance inside.

"Kazuki?" Soushi stands up from his desk when he sees him and comes over to the door. Is there a problem?"

"No," Kazuki shakes his head. He glances at the paper covered desk. "Are you working?"

"Yes," and Kazuki can see Soushi attempting to order his mind. "Reports for the battle," and then Soushi has to stop to stifle a yawn behind his hand.

"Soushi, have you eaten?"

"Eaten?" Soushi expression seems to say this is a concept to difficult to wrap his mind around.

"Ah, I'll get something from the vending machine."

Soushi nods and manages to say, "It's convenient," around his yawn.

No matter how conveniently close it is, when Kazuki returns Soushi is already back at his desk and he has to drop his loot on the bed and go and chivvy him out of his chair again.

It still feels strange, to touch Soushi like this again. But it is getting more familiar, and Kazuki thinks he likes that thought. When they settle down on the bed, leaning against each other's shoulders with the food a pile between them, it could almost be the past. A midnight feast, with the clock turned forward to show the correct time at nine. But the room is small and sterile, Alvis hums around them and they are still wearing their uniforms.

But still, Kazuki thinks, even if the illusion was perfect he would not want to let this moment go. The Soushi leaning against him and making tired noises is real, and the silent still tangle of feelings that lie between them is real, and he thinks that he wouldn't trade this reality for any memory.

Kazuki tears the wrapper of one of the chocolate bars and offers it to him; Soushi pauses before he takes it and Kazuki can almost see the brief thought of indignation at the coddling flash over his face, before he relaxes and accepts it. They sit together in the quiet and the dark, bearing each other's weights on their shoulders, slowly eating their way through the chocolate.

"This is a feast," Soushi murmurs when they are both half falling asleep, and somehow that makes such perfect sense that Kazuki can only return his own murmur in agreement, before the feel of Soushi's body cradled against his follows him into sleep.


End file.
